


Deserved and Deserving

by LMX



Category: Secret City
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, F/F, F/M, Spoilers, Trans Female Character, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7321186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim deserved so much more. So much more</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I don't want to be in lesbians with you

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few snippets to express how upset I am about Kim. For two whole episodes I was so happy about such positive representation, and while so very very honest to real world events, episode 3 just about killed me.

When everything had first kicked off – after the first two attempts at confession had been laughed off and shoved aside – and they’d stood in their kitchen saying all the wrong things to one another, Harriet had declared that she wasn’t going to be a lesbian for Kim. With all the breath punched out of her, Kim had retorted, ‘well who the fuck said I wanted to be lesbian with you?’.

The things they’d said that day had been the worst, most hurtful things, out of shock and fear and upset… but that was probably the most honest they’d been with one another up in their whole relationship. In a twisted kind of way, Kim had always felt it was a positive thing for Harry to say – almost straight away she’d seen Kim as a woman, had seen that to continue their relationship, she would have to be in a relationship with a woman.

Her shrink would tell her more than once afterwards that it was a dreadful association to make. Harry was *trying* to be hurtful, and it had been a horrible unsupportive thing to say to her husband in such a difficult time, but Kim had clung to it too tightly to be budged.

Harry wasn’t going to break up their marriage because she didn’t love Kim. Harry wasn’t reacting to her desire to transition, the change in her body or her appearance. Harry was just too straight to be married to a woman.

Harriet Dunkley, while willing to tow the company line on diversity and acceptance, had never been the best proponent for LGBT+ issues – too human for her, they’d laughed, and it’s a bit sad that now Kim knows how close to the bone that was.

If she’s being honest with herself – and Kim tries to do that these days, because if she’d just learned it a little earlier, fuck, she could have done this *decades* ago – she wasn’t the best ally herself growing up. Too much fear of herself. Too much like making a confession.

She’s trying harder now, trying to be a role model, trying to be a visible sign of change. She works in an important job, and in a very behind-closed-doors kind of way, quite a visible one. She comes out publicly, doesn’t mention Harry at all although the question gets shouted at her by Harry’s fuckwit colleagues more than once (one voice, in particular, though she isn’t going to rise to it), and makes herself available to carefully selected panels and round table discussions.

Her coming out gets its little wave of attention, mostly positive apart from one small but upsetting act of vandalism, and then dies away. After that all that’s left is her job and a wife of five years handing her divorce papers as she describes the house she’s going to move into when she can just get her stuff together.


	2. Farcical funerals

Rachel is waiting for Harriet outside the church, and Harry regrets the moment of relief she’d had, that none of Kim’s friends had been forced to sit through that fucking shit-show. More a lecture on national security than a funeral.

“Look, I don’t know the circumstances, alright?” Rachel’s talking before she’s even had a chance to realise that it might have been more than coincidence. “It’s a funeral, sometimes we don’t get a lot of say in what happens, but that back there was a farce and you know it. That wasn’t for *her*.”

Harriet shuddered, feeling light headed. Even in the listings it hadn’t been Kim’s name, and she’d felt like screaming, like walking out just to be able to have some comment on the unfairness of it all. At least she could make sure the obit was right. At least she had that tiny power. “I do,” she nodded. “I do know it.”

“You knew it but you couldn’t say anything… or you didn’t want to?” Rachel shook her head, and Harry wished it didn’t look like she’d already answered that question for herself. “Alright, alright, this isn’t my place. You know I’m part of Kim’s support group, though God knows she could never bring herself to lean on us the slightest bit, but she meant a lot to some of the girls and guys in that group. Usually when things get shitty like this… Well, we like to organise our own wake.”

The idea of a wake filled with people who honestly, truly cared for Kim, who love her… “I can’t…” Harriet choked, grasping for an excuse. “Look, we still don’t know who…”

“I’m not asking you to be there,” Rachel interrupted, and even if there was no judgement in her tone Harry heard it loud and clear. “I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m just warning you that it’s going to happen. We have our own photos of her and we’re pretty self-sufficient for food and stuff like that. I’m guessing you’ll want us to keep it away from the journos, with the suped-up security deal you’ve got going on here.”

She glanced back and saw Vaugn lingering with a group of people who couldn’t have been more than acquaintances of Kim’s. “Send me the time, the address. There are others who would… there are others who’d like to remember Kim. I’ll let everyone know.”

“Damn right,” Rachel nodded. “It shouldn’t ever have been any other way, I hope you realise that.”

Harriet crumpled, and the woman huffed a ‘shit’ under her breath as she moved to pull her into a hug.

“She really loved you, y’know?” she gentled.

“I know.” Harriet pulled herself together. “Fuck,” she hissed, scrubbing salt off her face. “Fuck, I know. I loved her too, and you know what, I am going to find the fuck that did that to her, and he is going to fucking pay.”


	3. A true representation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am honoured to know someone who organised a wake like this after the tragic suicide of a dear friend. Love to everyone, and make sure you have a support group you can reach out to when things just get too much to see through. We're here, we love you, and we want you to be okay.

The room is bright and colourful and on every surface there’s a photograph of Kim Gordon. Beautiful, bright and colourful. Harry isn’t going to survive this, this is just too much for her. She hasn’t stepped inside, into the noise and cheer and celebration of Kim’s life, and she shouldn’t. She should go. She can’t possibly come into this place that is so bright and colourful and make it all grey like her.

She spots a poster pinned to the door that reads: “Strictly no work discussion allowed by order of the ASD. Big brother is listening!”

She’s halfway to the door when she spots the ASIO officer – Kim’s beau – coming up the steps. She should have invited him here instead of throwing him out of a place he obviously belonged like a jealous lover spurned. She should have been a bigger person. That wasn’t a new realisation.

Harriet stalls in the corridor, hoping he’ll walk past her without acknowledging her and she can go back to running away from this loving and caring environment. He doesn’t, pauses opposite her. Considers.

Damnit, but he’s going to be the bigger person, and she’s going to hate him for it.

“Shall we go in?” he offers, gently. She’d hate him if she didn’t think he was probably so good for Kim. He lost her too, she reminds herself. This is the only funeral that will ever be held for Kim Gordon, and she shouldn’t be here. She was never anything but an ex to Kim. Friends at most, and she’d be lying if she said she’d put any effort on her own part into that friendship.

“I’ll follow you in,” she managed, her voice more cracked than she expected. “I don’t…”

“We’ll go in together, and no one will be able to ask us any awkward questions in front of each other. Alright?” He’s trying to smile. Not quite managing it, but he’s trying.

Someone in the room behind them has started to sing some showtune that Kim would have hated but known all the words to, and Harry is finding it hard to look anywhere. Dancer takes her arm and steers her into the room full of bright colours and images of Kim’s face, and there’s a cheer that Harriet has never deserved less in her life.

But there are people here that Kim loved, and people who loved her in return and for the first time Harriet gets a glimpse of the life should could have had at Kim’s side.

It’s beautiful, and she’s never felt more alone.


End file.
